


only breathing when you're near me

by grydo2life



Category: ONE OK ROCK
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, a tiny bit of angst, unbetad but i did my best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23787724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grydo2life/pseuds/grydo2life
Summary: They’re in the middle of a show when it happens; Toru feels the instant the words sear across his chest.It’s fitting, he thinks, that Taka would be singing a love song when it happens.
Relationships: Morita Takahiro/Yamashita Toru
Comments: 5
Kudos: 62





	only breathing when you're near me

**Author's Note:**

> Look. Between the kiss in _Push Back_ , the embrace in _Head High_ , and THAT IG live, I am drowning in soft feelings for these boys. Also I'm a sucker for soulmate AUs. 
> 
> Title is borrowed from Parachute's _Lonely With Me_.

They’re in the middle of a show when it happens. Fifteen thousand people screaming and singing along, hands in the air as they raise their voices to join Taka’s. Toru feels the instant the words sear across his chest. His fingers fumble across the fretboard of his guitar briefly before he finds the rhythm again.

There’s nothing particularly special about this performance. It sounds good; they’re on top of their game. But they’ve been that way for the entirety of this tour. There’s really nothing to set this live apart from all the others.

Except—

Toru looks over to where Taka stands: hands curled around his microphone, eyes closed in concentration, skin shiny with a thin layer of sweat. The spotlight seems to halo him. Taka is always pretty, but in that moment he looks like something ethereal.

The thought pops into Toru’s head unbidden. _God_ , he thinks, _I love that man._

The words burn into his skin an instant later. He doesn’t need to look to know what they say.

It’s fitting, he thinks, that Taka would be singing a love song when it happens.

* * *

  
Everyone’s got a mark. 

They’ve been around for as long as humans have. There are plenty of origin stories — at least one for every religion — and a whole field of study in science aimed at explaining it, but what it comes down is really quite simple: everyone has a soulmate, and the instant you fall in love with them, the mark appears somewhere on your body. 

Usually it’s words, whatever they’re saying when it happens. Less common are pictures, a visual representation of whatever is happening at the moment. For a handful of people, it’s something more abstract, a shape or blotch of color that somehow has meaning to them.

Everyone has one, though. That’s what they say. 

It’s only technically true. The reality is that there’s a small, less talked about portion of the world that never meets or falls for the person they’re supposed to. A cruelty of fate, or maybe just a reminder that sometimes life doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. Regardless of the cause, they exist: a tiny percent of people considered to be _markless_.

For a long time, Toru thinks he might be one of them.

Now, in the aftermath of their show, standing in front of the mirror fixed over the bathroom sink, he tugs off his shirt and marvels at the dark words that are now permanently etched just under his collarbone in a hand he recognizes as Taka’s. He traces one finger along the outline they form. It feels like normal skin. Like they’re already a part of him.

Someone pounds on the bathroom door, impatient. Toru stares for a moment longer, then replaces his shirt and tries to calm his pounding heart.

* * *

  
Taka already has his mark. He’s admitted as much in interviews, back when his hair was still long enough for him to hide his eyes behind it. It’s unconventional and somewhere easy to hide; that’s about all he’s ever told anyone, his bandmates included.

Since he’s dated since then, most people assume his mark is a platonic one. Takeru has always been the popular theory among their fans. Toru, for his part, has made it a point to never put too much thought into it, reasoning that if Taka wanted him to know, he’d tell him directly.

It’s harder to reconcile that now, when his chest aches every time he so much as glances in Taka’s direction. 

One-sided marks are rare, but not unheard of. Toru tells himself that he’s lucky. He gets to be in Taka’s life, gets to share something amazing with him, gets to be considered one of his important people. That should be enough. That _has_ to be enough.

It feels hollow even in his own mind. He scrubs at the skin where the mark sits until it’s red and raw and tries desperately not to let himself hate what it represents.

He’s not sure how well he succeeds.

* * *

  
It comes to a head quickly. Toru, for all that he has built a reputation for being unreadable, is remarkably easy to understand if you know him well enough.

Taka shows up on his doorstep. They’re back home, on break between the tour and the preparations for their next release. Toru is a little surprised it took this long, given that they’re only a few floors away from each other.

Toru lets him in wordlessly, makes his way into his living room and falls onto his couch as Taka trails after him.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Taka accuses, eyes narrow.

Toru scrubs a hand over his face. He’s exhausted, all of a sudden. “Yes,” he says. Denying it will just make Taka more upset, and Toru hasn’t figured out how to box this away yet. Avoidance had seemed like the smarter tactic, up until now.

Taka flinches from the bluntness of it. There’s hurt in his eyes, now. Toru clenches his fists to keep himself from rubbing at his chest.

“ _Why?_ ”

Toru opens his mouth, but finds that he has no words in that moment. How can you explain something like this? Toru, who has never been good at expressing himself in the first place, finds that he can’t even find a place to begin. So he does the only thing he can think of that will make Taka understand.

Reaching back, he grabs at the back of his t-shirt and pulls it off.

Taka’s face twitches momentarily, going from upset to confused before he finally sees it. His eyebrows lift, expression open but lost.

“You…” he begins. Toru can see the exact moment he realizes what it is he’s looking at: the words, the handwriting. His eyes flick from Toru’s chest to his face and then back again. His hands tremble where they sit at his sides, like he wants to do something with them but is holding himself back. “ _When?_ ” He croaks out eventually.

“During the tour final.”

“Toru—”

“You already have your mark,” Toru says. “I didn’t know how to…”

He trails off, a million ways to finish that sentence hanging between them. Not a single one feels right.

Taka stares at him, long enough that Toru starts to twitch under the attention. And then, finally, he breathes, “You _idiot_.”

Toru’s eyes snap to him, confused, but Taka isn’t listening. Taka is, in fact, removing his belt. Toru’s mouth drops open, throat gone dry, but before he can force any noise out, Taka has hooked a thumb into the waistband of his jeans and tugged them down, until one corner of his hip is exposed. And there on the skin is a tattoo Toru has never seen before, a music staff with six notes dancing across the lines.

Except it isn’t a tattoo. Toru knows the instant that he sees it. It’s not a song he recognizes, but somehow the melody those notes carve out reverberates in him like he knows it.

Taka’s mark is one of music itself. It suits him, Toru thinks.

“We were supposed to be practicing,” Taka says, voice gone soft and low. “Except Alex kept fucking around and Ryota kept whining about how hungry he was. And you were just… sitting there. Playing on your guitar. And I thought it sounded nice, even if it wasn’t a song at all.”

Toru’s breath hitches. He meets Taka’s eyes. “That long?”

Taka’s smile is a wounded thing, tinged with a kind of wry self-deprecation that Toru hasn’t seen on him in years. “You were the first person who ever _wanted_ me that much, back then,” he says. 

Those words land like a blow. The force of it propels Toru to his feet, and without thinking he cups Taka’s face in his hands and crashes their lips together. It’s a desperate, needy gesture; Taka jolts at the first touch like a spark is lighting through him. In the next instant he’s melting into it, one hand wrapping around the back of Toru’s neck and the other lightly skimming across the skin where his words are. 

They stay like that until they physically can’t anymore. Toru is panting as they part, notes with a pleasant shiver that Taka seems just as breathless. He presses their forehead’s together, eyes fluttering shut, and drops one hand to wrap around Taka’s where it’s still pressed against his mark. 

He can feel his heart thundering against his ribcage. Taka’s, he knows with certainty, must be beating in sync.

* * *

  
Later, they lay spread out on Toru’s couch, Toru settled between Taka’s legs. He mouths absently at the notes on Taka’s hip, sighs in contentment when Taka slides his fingers into his hair and scratches lightly.

Toru thinks, abruptly, of all the years they could have been doing this, if only he’d paid a little more attention. 

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” he says, trusting Taka to understand.

Taka smiles down at him. “It’s okay.” He tugs at Toru’s hair, not enough to hurt but enough to get his attention. The look in his eyes goes dark and heavy, lips curling into a smirk that makes Toru’s blood warm. “You’ll just have to make it up to me, yeah?”

Toru’s mark is burning. It’s no longer an unpleasant sensation. “I can do that.”

Taka pulls at him until Toru’s weight is bearing down on him in a way that is equal parts comforting and heady. “ _Show me._ ”

Toru does.

**Author's Note:**

> It's up to you what song/lyric Toru's mark is of. I had _Always Coming Back_ in mind when I was writing it, but I ultimately decided to leave it ambiguous so y'all could insert your preferred OOR lyric in there. If you feel like it, let me know in the comments what you think it should be!
> 
> I'm over on [tumblr](https://magically-with-magic.tumblr.com/) if you want to come say hi. I like it when people say hi!


End file.
